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Wednesday, November 02, 2005

I'm always surprised at what this blog can be. To me, it's generally a forum for the voices in my head — something funny or trivial or the latest cinematic production from Lier X. Aggregate. Since I decided to approve comments, it's become a way for my friends to share this, to some extent, or to call me on my bullshit. And for the creepos with nothing in their lives besides a keyboard, a monitor and a cable modem, this blog serves as a way for them to peer into the life of a total stranger.

Just this week, however, the Cereal Box helped someone I admire contact me. That's never happened before. I checked my email on the morning of Halloween and found a notice of a comment being posted. The comment was purportedly from Mike Lebovitz, the man behind a neat little band called Father Bingo. I’ve mentioned Father Bingo before — in the tracklists of CDs I’ve burned for friends and also in the lengthy post entitled “Ginger Prince Is Not Shirley Temple.” This is also the post that Mike Lebovitz’s comment is attached to. Go ahead. Read it.

I initially thought the comment was a prank. It was Halloween, after all, though I suppose the late October pranks are more in the style of car-egging. Besides, who besides Spencer and me would even know who Mike Lebovitz was?

Despite the fact that his comment ends in “You’re wasting your time. You’re wasting your time” — the last lyrics of the song — I feel that this little, wonderful thing is validating. It’s exactly the reason why I would continue to write this blog. Mike Lebovitz made a song and I appreciate it enough to look into what it could have been about. I wrote that, and now he’s read it. It’s remarkable that it happened, and not just because I accidentally referred to him as “Mark” in the initial posting. (This has been fixed.)

I still like the song. It’s entirely worth the ninety-nine cents it costs to download on iTunes. I like that the first stranger who stumbled upon what I wrote about them was flattered. (Julia Roberts, I’m guessing, would not be.) And I still like this blog. Nearly four years old and still surprising me.